2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike

[Green-Tea]

Im soo happy about this.

[Hurmoth]

Im soo happy about this.

Happy about the strike or happy about the possible end in sight? Any particular reasons why you're happy?

[Rappy Veteran]

Happy about the strike or happy about the possible end in sight? Any particular reasons why you're happy?

Can't he just generally be happy :D

[Hurmoth]

Can't he just generally be happy :D

lol absolutely, but I was curious why he happy about this particular thing :p

[episode]

They have contracts with the unions, they can't fire them. That's the point of a contract. There are clauses where they can get rid of them, but most likely will have to continue paying them a certain amount or some kind of severance package.

The selfish people are people like you who seem to care more about some TV show than the livelihoods of those who create the shows. And your disclaimer is suppose to do what? Make me feel small because you called my opinion nonsense? :laugh: If anything the fact that you went there only makes me feel bigger. Thanks (Y)

No, they went on strike when the contract was up. They currently do not have a contract. Thats the whole point.

They CAN be fired. However, people that cross a union picket line will find themselves blacklisted, and when there is a resolution, they would quickly find themselves unable to be employed in that line of work.

For instance: George Lucas and Irvin Kershner went against the (can't remember which, directors I think) union with Empire Strikes Back (not allowing credits in the beginning of the film). They were excluded from that union, and that lasted a while until Lucas had enough influence in the industry to get them back in.

That wouldn't happen for Joe Schmoe writer crossing a picket line.

[Doli]

I hope they find a solution fast, we dont want Reality TV shows getting any upper hand from this strike.

[Hurmoth]

No, they went on strike when the contract was up. They currently do not have a contract. Thats the whole point.

While you are correct that they are not under a contract now, they actually went on strike after their contracts were up. The contracts ended Oct. 31, they didn't go on strike until Nov. 4.

Regardless, the chances of the studios firing their writers because of the strike is slim. Can you imagine Heroes firing their writers? Seriously I imagine the show would really be hurt from something like that. Other shows, if it were to happen, would be hurt as well (Lost, 24, etc.). Obviously this doesn't apply to every show, but look at Two and a Half Men, the writer who has written the most episodes is also one of the two creators and executive producer of the show (written 105 episodes). I can't imagine CBS would fire him because he's on strike when he's one of the main guys behind the show.

[Hurmoth]

WGA Horror Writers Strike at WB!

If you head on over to BDTV you can watch a video sent to us from the WGA Horror Writers Strike, which took place this morning (Tuesday, November 27, 2007) outside of Warner Bros. Studios. The group of horror writers were on hand to perform a 'studio exorcism' to clean the system of the demons within. I hope it helped! On hand was Leigh Whannell (Saw), James Wan (Saw), Steven Niles (30 Days of Night), Jake Wade Wall (Amusement), Don Mancini (Child's Play), Mike Mendez (The Gravedancers), Brad Keene (The Grudge 3), JT Petty (The Burrowers), Dan Farrands (The Girl Next Door), Eric Red (100 Feet, Hitcher, Near Dark) and many many more.

Source: http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/10542

[draklin]

NEW YORK -- Striking movie and television writers failed to reach a deal with producers after meeting into the evening Tuesday on a second day of renewed contract talks.

Both sides agreed to reconvene at 10 a.m. Wednesday, said a person familiar with the contract negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

Both the writers union and the group representing studios declined to comment on the negotiations and would not reveal their location.

The Writers Guild of America went on strike Nov. 5 over payment for work aired on the Web.

After weeks of writers picketing in front of studios and bitter words traded on both sides, producers and writers had agreed to restart negotiations Monday.

[dud]

What did their contracts say about web broadcasting, anyway? I'm not up to speed on the whole strike business.

[Rappy Veteran]

Damn!

[*RedBull*]

Now you try to redeem yourself by turning your own words, but they are clear, what you said was, "Which the writers are being unreasonable and asking for too much which is causing us, the viewers, lost episode viewing. They are being selfish." Now you're saying that you don't know enough about the issues to have a valid position, but that's not the way you originally wrote it.

And the disclaimer may have been intended to be jokingly but that's not the way they came off. I apologize if I took it the wrong way.

LOL you come off as angry. I was joking about the whole thing. It is inconvienant, but I understand. I am not selfish.

[Hurmoth]

LOL you come off as angry. I was joking about the whole thing. It is inconvienant, but I understand. I am not selfish.

That's the reason I also apologized for taking what you said the wrong way.

[Hurmoth]

So This Strike Thing Is All Over, Right?

Gosh, I don't know. Do you?

I've been asked many times if the strike is going to end this week. Nikki Finke posted a very optimistic report from an insider yesterday morning, and that has set off a wave of enthusiasm. "Fire up the margarita machine!" you say.

Well, not so fast. First of all, it's November, and who drinks margaritas in November?

What if this round of negotiations falls apart? Personally, I didn't think it would come to a strike in the first place. It seemed inconceivable that the conglomerates would stand by a platform that was so -- no other word for it -- evil. But they did. And we went on strike. Had the AMPTP proposal been only 60% evil, who knows what would have happened. As Craig Mazin recently wrote,

"Either they dared us to strike to see if we had the balls (dumb, because their deal was so

ridiculous, who would possibly agree to take it?), or they forced us to strike in order to….

…well, hell, Nick Counter, buy me a drink one day and explain that to me if it’s the case. It

certainly seemed like the AMPTP forced a strike, but to what end?"

As usual, Craig says it best and says it first. Given that history, am I optimistic we'll have a fair deal by the end of the week? Nope. I'd love one. But I'm afraid after how the companies have behaved so far, I'll feel enthusiastic when there's a joint announcement about a deal and not a moment sooner.

So what do we do until that happy email lands in our inboxes? We keep up the pressure. And to demonstrate resolve, we continue to blog in italics. Part of me, the paranoid part, worries these optimistic rumors are deliberately intended to lull us into a false sense of security. We start to slack off, let the pickets go, stop the bloggity blogging, and then, BAM! Nick Counter cackles, "Gotcha, sucker!" as he zooms up the chimney with my Christmas tree.

I think it's safe to say that this strike didn't go the way the companies thought it would. Let's keep it that way. Check out the article by Brooks Barnes that ran in today's New York Times. Brooks has been no mouthpiece for the Guild. (He started out rather hostile!) My favorite quote:

“Wow,” said Leo Reed, the gruff secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 399 and director of

its motion picture division. “You are acting like a militant union.”

Surprise! Turns out you act militant when someone tries to steal the future -- not just your future, but the future of everyone you work with above and below the line.

So let's hope we can all get together for those margaritas, and well before summertime. But don't book the back room at El Coyote yet.

[Rappy Veteran]

really makes the point clear I think.

[Hurmoth]

So what if the strike ended tomorrow?

Scenario: If the writers went right back to work

After three days of talks, the sense around Hollywood is that the nearly four-week old writers strike could be over in a matter of days, with the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers coming to terms on a new contract that would put TV script writers back to work.

But then the question arises, how soon before viewers begin seeing fresh episodes of shows such as NBC’s “The Office” and CBS’s “NCIS,” which have run out of original episodes, or ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and Fox’s “House," which are close to running out?

The answer, in brief: not for some time. Think in terms of months, perhaps not before late February or March.

Here's a timeline. It takes about three weeks to write and produce original episodes of half-hour comedies and about five weeks for hour-long dramas, studio executives tell Media Life. Then it takes another two or three weeks for post-production editing.

Dramas take longer because they employ so many more people, 200 or so.

Were the strike to end today, it would take some time to get everyone back to work and up to speed. Dramas, unlike sitcoms, are often shot on remote locations, which have to be scouted out, and their shooting schedules are more complicated as a result. All that takes more man hours to work out, which translates into time.

Comedies take less time because they are shot on sets and the writing is often done on the fly, with scripts going through heavy rewrites and tweaks in the days leading up to filming and as the actors are going over their lines.

If in fact the WGA and the AMPTP are close to settling, the most likely scenario is that the two sides would come to an agreement in principle that would send the writers back to work immediately. The groups' negotiating teams would then sit down and work through the details of a final contract that would then be put before WGA members for a vote.

The writers would then likely work through much of the holiday season, skipping their usual two-week end-of-year break.

In either case, an end to the strike or not, the networks are in for a break in December, a month in which primetime schedules are loaded up with reruns and holiday specials anyhow.

But come January and February their primetime lineups are in for trouble as more series run dry of original episodes.

The one exception will be Fox.

It will be well-stocked with original episodes of animated hits like “Family Guy” and “Simpsons,” which are in production months in advance. It also has a stockpile of episodes for new midseason series like “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.”

Then it's got its biggest gun of all in “American Idol,” which returns in January with the promise of once again dominating the second half of the season as broadcast TV's No. 1 show.

The outlook for the other Big Four networks is mixed in the event the strike is settled in a matter of days.

They can pace themselves through January and February as they wait for new episodes by parsing out what's left of originals filmed before and during the strike. And each has some returning shows with fresh episodes, like ABC’s “Lost,” which is wrapping up principal photography this week on its eighth episode, and CBS’s “New Adventures of Old Christine” and NBC’s “Medium.”

They can further pad schedules with game shows and reality shows.

In that scenario, based on the strike ending shortly, the impact on primetime ratings would be modest. There would be enough original content in January and February to keep ratings at decent levels until the new episodes came on.

Late-night, though in reruns for nearly four weeks, would rebound quickly, with writers back on the job in days and new episodes airing almost immediately.

Daytime would feel no impact. A big worry has been that with an extended strike daytime dramas would be forced into reruns. But that point has not come yet, and with a quick end to the strike they would not be disrupted.

[Hurmoth]

Striking Hollywood Writers Reject New Offer From Studios

Negotiations between Hollywood studio executives and producers, and the union representing striking film and television writers are on hold after four days of talks.

More than 10,000 members of the Writers Guild of America have been on strike for more than three weeks. They are demanding a greater share of the proceeds from sales of digital reproductions of television shows and films, as well as programs shown on the Internet and other digital outlets.

The Writers Guild rejected a three-year deal offered by the producers on Thursday. The producers say the writers would make $130 million above the more than $1 billion they currently earn.

The union says the writers would only make $250 from a year's re-use of an hour-long show on the Internet - a fraction of what they make for a network rerun.

The Writers Guild offered a counter-proposal they say would cost the industry $151 million over three years, which amounts to a three-percent increase in writer's pay.

The writers' strike - the first in nearly 20 years - has shut down production on scores of weekly and daily television shows, and has begun to affect work on big-screen feature films.

[Hurmoth]

Press Blackout Lifted -- Companies Offer Rollbacks

The companies put out a press release today, thus ending the media blackout to which they and the WGA agreed. So this is what we no know:

That big, amazing proposal that the companies hinted to Nikki Finke was coming? Well, it came.

Turns out their exciting, groundbreaking proposal is... a residual rollback. And not just any rollback, one of the biggest in the history of the Guild. Then, stunningly, the companies have the balls to say their plan gives us more compensation. Well, I'm sorry, but If you take away a dollar and give me a nickel, the nickel ain't a raise. Somewhere, Nick Counter's first-grade math teacher is embarrassed.

So we decided to do some math of our own: We broke out the cost of the WGA's current proposal to the conglomerates into yearly figures. We found that the TOTAL payment yearly -- the total that ALL the companies would make under our proposals -- is $50.54 million. And that, we realized, is about one-third the budget of TRANSFORMERS. We are asking IN TOTAL, for the equivalent of the cost overrun on a summer event movie.

Instead of agreeing that that is a fair and just offer, they've proposed this:

When an hourlong episode of television is streamed on the Internet, writers would get a flat $250 payment for one year of reuse. That's $250 as opposed to, for example, $20,000 per episode when it's reused on network television. They proposed nothing new on downloads, it's still the DVD formula for those (ie. two-thirds of a penny for an iTunes download). For theatrical movies, they're offering exactly $0.00 on streaming. Oh, and they want to be able to define any content they like as "promotional" -- for which they would pay zero dollars. Even if they stream an entire film or tv episode, and even if they sell ads on it, they can call that promotional and pay us nothing.

THE AMPTP claims their deal is worth $130 million over three years. But what they don't mention is how much we'd lose under their proposal. As all media distribution transitions to the Internet before our eyes, their proposal takes away far, far more revenue than it provides.

A bold, new relationship? Sure, an abusive one.

Patric Verrone sent this letter to membership a few minutes ago:

To My Fellow Members,

After four days of bargaining with the AMPTP, I am writing to let you know that, though we are still at the table, the press blackout has been lifted.

Our inability to communicate with our members has left a vacuum of information that has been filled with rumors, both well intentioned and deceptive.

Among the rumors was the assertion that the AMPTP had a groundbreaking proposal that would make this negotiation a "done deal." In fact, for the first three days of this week, the companies presented in essence their November 4 package with not an iota of movement on any of the issues that matter to writers.

Thursday morning, the first new proposal was finally presented to us. It dealt only with streaming and made-for-Internet jurisdiction, and it amounts to a massive rollback.

From streaming television episodes, the companies proposed a residual structure of a single fixed payment of less than $250 for a year's reuse of an hour-long program (compared to over $20,000 payable for a network rerun). For theatrical product they are offering no residuals whatsoever for streaming.

For made-for-Internet material, they offered minimums that would allow a studio to produce up to a 15 minute episode of network-derived web content for a script fee of $1300. They continued to refuse to grant jurisdiction over original content for the Internet.

In their new proposal, they made absolutely no move on the download formula (which they propose to pay at the DVD rate), and continue to assert that they can deem any reuse "promotional," and pay no residual (even if they replay the entire film or TV episode and even if they make money).

The AMPTP says it will have additional proposals to make but, as of Thursday evening, they have not been presented to us. We are scheduled to meet with them again on Tuesday.

In the meantime, I felt it was essential to update you accurately on where negotiations stood. On Wednesday we presented a comprehensive economic justification for our proposals. Our entire package would cost this industry $151 million over three years. That's a little over a 3% increase in writer earnings each year, while company revenues are projected to grow at a rate of 10%. We are falling behind.

For Sony, this entire deal would cost $1.68 million per year. For Disney $6.25 million. Paramount and CBS would each pay about $4.66 million, Warner about $11.2 million, Fox $6.04 million, and NBC/Universal $7.44 million. MGM would pay $320,000 and the entire universe of remaining companies would assume the remainder of about $8.3 million per year. As we've stated repeatedly, our proposals are more than reasonable and the companies have no excuse for denying it.

The AMPTP's intractability is dispiriting news but it must also be motivating. Any movement on the part of these multinational conglomerates has been the result of the collective action of our membership, with the support of SAG, other unions, supportive politicians, and the general public. We must fight on, returning to the lines on Monday in force to make it clear that we will not back down, that we will not accept a bad deal, and that we are all in this together.

Best,

Patric M. Verrone

President, WGAW

Michael Winship

President, WGAE

[draklin]

I grow sad

[Crazysah]

When is this going to end?

[OPaul]

Probably about the same time this whole streaming TV on your computer thing lasts. IMO it's just a fad and soon enough people will realize paying to stream TV on your computer is a waste of time and money. You can either download the whole episode for free, or watch it on your TV which your already paying a cable bill for. I don't understand why these writers want to waste their time asking for money for something that is going to die in the end anyway.

[Doli]

Probably about the same time this whole streaming TV on your computer thing lasts. IMO it's just a fad and soon enough people will realize paying to stream TV on your computer is a waste of time and money. You can either download the whole episode for free, or watch it on your TV which your already paying a cable bill for. I don't understand why these writers want to waste their time asking for money for something that is going to die in the end anyway.

Its also about getting a cut in the DVD sales, eight cents per DVD sold.

[Hurmoth]

Probably about the same time this whole streaming TV on your computer thing lasts. IMO it's just a fad and soon enough people will realize paying to stream TV on your computer is a waste of time and money. You can either download the whole episode for free, or watch it on your TV which your already paying a cable bill for. I don't understand why these writers want to waste their time asking for money for something that is going to die in the end anyway.

Even the streaming for free pays the studios money because there's ads in them. But I have to disagree with you though. I think more and more people are going to pay for online TV because more and more people are going to get mobile devices (Zune, iPod, iPhone, etc.) and want to watch these items on the go. Just my opinion, but I think it is the future.

Its also about getting a cut in the DVD sales, eight cents per DVD sold.

No, they dropped that a long time ago. They want residuals from new media (Internet, Cell phones, and also reruns, etc.).

[Rappy Veteran]

I wish they would just end this I mean the studios have the money name the price and pay it!

[Rappy Veteran]

Non-writing staff members of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno have lost their jobs as a result of the Hollywood writers' strike.

TV network NBC confirmed the job losses without providing further details as to how many people had been affected.

The show had to start showing repeats when the strike began on 5 November and Leno supported the picket lines.

Talks to end the strike will resume on Tuesday after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) rejected the last offer.

NBC had been covering the salaries of the non-writing staff members.

Another NBC talk show host Conan O'Brien has promised to cover the salaries of about 75 non-striking employees on his Late Night show next week.

Comedian O'Brien's own salary has been suspended.

Since the strike began, many high-profile television programmes, such as Desperate Housewives, and films in the US have been disrupted.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said at the end of last week that it was willing to offer "more than $130m (?63m) in additional compensation above and beyond the more than $1.3bn (?629m) writers already receive each year".

It said its offer included payments for work shown online, the key sticking point in the talks.

But the WGA said the proposal did not deal fully with its concerns, calling it a "massive rollback".

It argued that studios should adopt its counter-offer instead, which would cost a projected $151m (?73m) over three years.